Ravel is sometimes seen as a remote, detached and unemotional man - however much his music may say otherwise to his admirers. His life was not particularly eventful and does not provide ready insights into his nature. One way of getting a closer view of the man is through the people with whom he was intimate: the friends with whom he spent time or with whom he corresponded by letter, and his family, which was small but close.

Friends

Around 1903, when Ravel was in his twenties, he became one of an avant-garde group of artists, writers and musicians known as the "Apaches". (One day, a group of them had bumped into a newspaper seller in the rue de Rome; he cried out "Attention les apaches". They cheerfully adopted the name of 'hooligans'. At Ravel's suggestion, they chose the first theme of Borodin's 2nd Symphony as their 'signature' tune.)

The Apaches used to meet regularly on Saturdays, at first at the home of Paul Sordes, in rue Dulong in Montmartre, or at that of Tristan Klingsor in avenue du Parc-Montsouris, and later in the studio of Maurice Delage, in rue de Civry in Auteil. Various members of the group became longterm friends of Ravel.